The Supreme Court, continuing a string of orders temporarily freeing President Trump from lower-court orders blocking his use of broad new powers, on Monday gave his government permission to continue rounding up hundreds of individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
By an apparent vote of 6-to-3, the Court set aside a Los Angeles federal judge’s order in July curbing immigration officers from job-site raids that spread fear and panic in Los Angeles and surrounding towns and farms. The order banned stops, arrests and detention of individuals working at low-paying jobs or lingering near such sites, if they appear to be foreigners and speak Spanish or English with an accent. Those factors, the judge found, were not enough to support the suspicion that they were here illegally.
The raids continued for a month, aimed at people gathered at car washes, lots where towed cars are stored, parks and farms.
The ruling, issued July 11 by U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong, was to be in effect only until she could go on to issue a final ruling on the raids’ legality. The member of Trump’s Cabinet who handles immigration policy, Homeland Security Kristi Noem, called the judge an “idiot” and vowed to keep up the aggressive campaign.
Some 2,800 individuals were stopped, often with rough handling and few or no questions, during an immigration raid policy named “Operation At Large” that made the California city and surrounding area the first major target of the President’s mass-deportation program.
The Supreme Court majority did not explain its action, but one Justice who supported it, Brett M. Kavanaugh, wrote a five-page opinion for only himself seeking to justify what the Court had done. He said that immigration-control law only requires “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally in order to stop and detain someone, and he found that the challenged raids appeared to have met that standard.
The Court’s action appeared to have the support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and four Justices besides Kavanaugh: Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a 21-page dissenting opinion, severely criticized the action, arguing that it withdraws all constitutional protection “for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little….This is unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.” Her opinion was joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.
Sotomayor, noting that U.S. citizens were among those seized and temporarily detained, said that the Court’s permission for the raids means that “an entire class of citizens [must] carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely.
This decision had no direct connection to the legality of the President’s ordering of military forces, including Marines and members of the National Guard, to help in enforcing immigration laws in California. However, a federal judge in San Francisco last week ruled that the use of the military for enforcing local laws in California violated an 1876 federal law forbidding that kind of mission. He postponed his order until Friday to allow the government to appeal.
Trump has sent military troops into Washington, D.C., claiming that the city had serious problems with crime; as President, he has significantly more power to act in the nation’s capital than elsewhere in the country.
Yesterday, the White House announced that immigration officers will soon be sent to Chicago on a similar mission, called “Operation Midway Blitz.” The announcement did not say whether troops will be sent there; state and local officials have protested that use of the military to deal with local law enforcement would be illegal. State and city officials opposed any such move.
The President, in an online message yesterday, noted that he has recently renamed the Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” and said he would soon put it into Illinois to protect the people of that state.
The Supreme Court’s temporary ruling permitting the immigration roundups to continue in California followed a number of “emergency” orders by the Court this year that have allowed some of Trump’s deportations to occur but have given some of those facing deportation a degree of protection to challenge their removal.
On another presidential power issue, Chief Justice Roberts issued a temporary order Monday in support of Trump’s firing of a member of the Federal Trade Commission – supposedly an independent agency that Congress created with protection from summary firing by the President. Trump has now used that authority three times, allowed by the Court, without giving any reasons.
He has also claimed that he has fired a member of the independent Federal Reserve Board, the government body that oversees the nation’s fiscal and monetary policy, but that is being challenged in court.
Roberts’ order Monday stopped the reinstatement of the Trade Commission member until the Court can act further.
The Court’s conservative majority apparently is leaning strongly toward allowing the President to dismiss independent agency officials, on the theory that he needs that power to assure that the entire Executive Branch carries out his policies. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1935 that firing of such officials is unconstitutional. It would take a five-Justice majority to overrule that precedent.
